... M57: The Ring Nebula . ... Its classic appearance is understood to be due to perspective - our view from planet Earth looks down the center of a roughly barrel-shaped cloud of glowing gas. ... Climbing into cloudy skies, the Space Shuttle Orbiter Discovery (OV-103) took off from Kennedy Space Center Tuesday at 7 am local time. ... Antares and Clouds . ... Antares is a huge star. ... Through this window, a brightly-lit workshop appears where a whole open cluster of stars is being formed. ...

... Bad Astronomy . ... Bitesize Astronomy . ... Last week's Snack talked about how black holes can affect the environment around them in such a way as to be very bright . ... It's a common misconception that black holes always have matter swirling into them. ... As this matter gets closer and closer to the black hole it piles up and a large, fairly flat disk forms. This is called the accretion disk , because matter from this disk accretes (that is, falls in) on the black hole. ... 2008 Phil Plait. ...

... Armagh Observatory, College Hill, Armagh BT61 9DG, +44 (0)28 3752 2928 . ... Three sixth-form students from St Patrick's Grammar School, Armagh , used the Faulkes Telescope South in Australia in April to observe and measure HW Virginis , an unusual "binary" or double star system suspected to host one or two extrasolar planets orbiting the central stellar pair. ... Armagh Observatory and associated researchers hope to develop this work to look for further evidence of planet-hosting binary star...

... Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2010 April 8 . Discovery's Cloud . ... Explanation: The space shuttle orbiter Discovery is now docked with the International Space Station , some 350 kilometers above planet Earth . ... Tomorrow's picture: Discovery's Dawn . ... About APOD | ... NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply . ... A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC . ...

... Tonight's Sky . ... Observing . ... Sky this Month . ... Astronomy for Kids . ... Can you explain Mercury's retrograde motion? Do other planets appear to do this also? ... When astronomers talk about retrograde motion, generally they refer to the apparent motion outer planets make as Earth passes them while orbiting the Sun. ... Get instant access to subscriber content on Astronomy.com! ... Receive news, sky-event information, observing tips, and more from Astronomy's weekly email newsletter. ...

New Satellites of Saturn . On July 26, 1995, Amanda Bosh of Lowell Observatory announced the discovery of at least two and perhaps four new satellites of Saturn . The discovery was based upon images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope on May 22, 1995, when Saturn's rings were tilted edge-on to the Earth . ... The two satellites S/1995 S1 and S2 lie inside Saturn's thin, eccentric "F" ring . ... The fourth satellite S/1995 S4 is 6,000 kilometers (3,700 miles) beyond the F ring. ... S/1995 S 3 . ...

... Armagh Planetarium . ... Universe . ... Posted on January 19, 2012 | ... Continue Reading.. ... 1 Comment A new image of the Omega Nebula reveals amazing detail in a cosmic landscape of gas clouds, dust and newborn stars.€а Captured by the Very Large Telescope (VLT) at the [ ] . ... Welcome to our annual guide to what the Universe has waiting [ ] . ... The furthest you can travel from home across the [ ] . ... This local school has its own observatory and astronomy club for the students [ ] . ...

... A brand new telescope that is still being built, called ALMA, has already made its first discovery! It has spotted two planets orbiting the star shown in this photograph, which are among the coldest planets ever found. ... Only about a quarter of ALMA s 66 dishes were ready to use when the astronomers discovered these planets. ALMA may be still under construction, but it is already the most powerful telescope of its kind," says Bill Dent, one of the astronomers reporting the new discovery. ...

Follow-up astrometry and recoveries are made with the ANU 40 inch (1.0-m) f/8 reflector at Siding Spring Observatory (IAU code 413). ... A routine follow-up of 2003 WY153 on 2003 Dec 15 became much more than routine when a faint object with unusual motion vector was found close to the target asteroid. ... During routine astrometry with the 1.0-m to improve the orbit of the Apollo asteroid 2004 CB, the asteroid was found on March 30 to have a short tail! ... Siding Spring Survey Main Page . ...

My research efforts have focused on three areas which are: . More than 200 extrasolar planets have been discovered around relatively nearby stars, primarily through the Doppler line shifts owing to the reflex motions of their host stars, and more recently through transits of some planets across the face of the host stars. ... Gravitational microlensing provides a novel technique to look for planets around lens stars, and this is the only technique currently capable of detecting Earth-mass planets. ...

... Its perihelion would occur on April 1, 1997, at which point the comet would be only 0.92 astronomical units from the Sun, just within the orbit of Earth. ... Taken in April 1993, the photo showed the comet over 13 astronomical units from the Sun, well beyond the orbit of Saturn. ... Hale, as in Comet Hale-Bopp, has written a book, Everybody's Comet (available through the ASP Catalog) and coordinated an Internet project, "Hale-Bopp: Live in the American Classroom." ... Anatomy of a comet. ...

... PUBLIC LECTURE - APRIL 12, 2016 . New Discoveries in the Outer Solar System: Ceres, Pluto and Planet X . ... Dr. Green will talk about "New Discoveries in the Outer Solar System: Ceres, Pluto, and Planet X". ... Beginning in 1992 planetary astronomers began to find Pluto like objects beyond the orbit of Neptune showing us that Pluto was a member of an entirely new family of objects we now call the Kuiper Belt. ... Amateur Astronomers Association of Princeton, Inc., ...

... The Pleiades star cluster, also known as the Seven Sisters and Messier 45, is a conspicuous object in the night sky with a prominent place in ancient mythology . ... The stars in the Pleiades are thought to have formed together around 100 million years ago, making them 1/50th the age of our sun, and they lie some 130 parsecs (425 light years ) away. ... Data for these stars are listed in a table below. ... Yes . ... WEBDA Pleiades cluster data . ... M45: The Pleiades Star Cluster (2007 November 18) ...

... Neptune is smaller in diameter but larger in mass than Uranus . ... N eptune has been visited by only one spacecraft, Voyager 2 on Aug 25 1989. ... A t the time of the Voyager encounter, Neptune's most prominent feature was the Great Dark Spot (left) in the southern hemisphere. ... Neptune's winds blew the Great Dark Spot westward at 300 meters/second (700 mph). ... L ike Uranus and Jupiter, Neptune's rings are very dark but their composition is unknown. ... Neptune's Ring System . ... Uranus .. ...

... More on 51 Peg: . The discovery of a Jupiter--mass planet in orbit around the solar--type star 51Peg has been reported by Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz (Geneva Observatory) on October 6th at the 9th Cambridge workshop on "cool stars, stellar systems, and the sun" held at Florence (Italy). ... Recall that the measurements of radial velocity only yield v sin i which in turn gives us M sin i. For most values of i, sin i will be greater than 0.5 and this gives a mass estimate of 0.5 Jupiter masses. ...

The lost world: Pluto and Haron. Pluto . ... Mass . ... The period of rotation . ... Pluto is the ninth from the Sun big planet of the solar system. ... The careful processing of the snapshots with the images of the star sky parts, where the new planet was thought to be found was not successful at that time (later on when Pluto had been discovered the snapshots of 1991 were processed again and there were the four very weak and invisible earlier imeges of the planet seen). ...

Astronomy Discussion Forums . ... Atm ћ Astrophotography ћ Blackholes ћ Blackholes2 ћ CCD ћ Celestron ћ Domes ћ Education . ... New model: How do the Sun and Moon appear to move across the sky - mito111 - September 15, 2011 - 04:22 UTC . ... Note the change - rick_crockett - April 19, 2007 - 09:38 UTC . ... A Question Regarding Photons and Absolute Zero - inalitalllane - December 25, 2004 - 22:06 UTC . ... Virtual Space Agency - dupagepilot - November 18, 2003 - 12:03 UTC . ... www.astronomy.net . ...

... 9a. Earth orbits Sun? . ... As noted earlier , Aristarchus of Samos proposed that the Earth revolved around the Sun, but the idea was rejected by later Greek astronomers, in particular by Hipparchus. ... For a discussion of the discovery of the solar system which includes a "moving picture" illustrating retrograde motion, click here . ... The full story of the discovery of the solar system--of Copernicus, Galileo, Tycho and Kepler--is long and would take this discussion too far afield. ...

Class 1 Introduction, Background History of Modern Astronomy The Night Sky, Eclipses and the Seasons Kepler's Laws Newtonian Gravity General Relativity Matter and Light Telescopes Class 2 Solar System Characteristics Formation Exosolar Planets Class 3 Stars The Sun Stellar Evolution of Low and High Mass Stars Deaths of Stars Exotic Stars Class 4 Galaxies Galaxy Classification Formation of Galaxies Galactic Evolution ... So far, one planet has been studied by this method. ...

The basic problems of the Laboratory are connected with researches of dynamics of minor planets and comets. ... THE ORBIT IMPROVEMENT of minor planets from optical and radar observations, . the utilization of minor planet observations for THE DETERMINATION OF ORIENTATION OF STAR CATALOGUES and DETERMINATION OF MASSES OF MINOR PLANETS BY DYNAMICAL METHOD, . THE ESTIMATION OF COLLISION PROBABILITY of minor planets with other bodies and with each other, . ...